OF THE SOUTH SEAS 397 



Arioi had existed as far back as their legends ran, Cap- 

 tain Cook, as said Tetuanui, estimated the Tahitians to 

 number seventy thousand in 1769. The chronicles say- 

 that the bizarre order was rooted out a hundred years 

 ago. There are barely five thousand living of this ex- 

 quisite race, which the white had found without dis- 

 ease, happy, and radiantly healthy. Evidently the Arioi 

 had merely preserved a supportable maximum of num- 

 bers, and it remained for civilization to doom the entire 

 people. 



The Arioi fathers and mothers strangled their chil- 

 dren or buried them immediately after birth, for it was 

 infamous to have them, and their existence in an Arioi 

 family would have created as much consternation as in 

 a Tibetan nunnery. 



Infanticide in Tahiti and the surrounding islands was 

 not confined to the Arioi. The first three children of 

 all couples were usually destroyed, and twins were both 

 killed. In the largest families more than two or three 

 children were seldom spared, and as they were a pro- 

 lific race, their not nursing the sacrificed innocents made 

 for more frequent births. Four, six, or even ten chil- 

 dren would be killed by one couple during their married 

 life. Ellis, an English missionary, says that not fewer 

 than two-thirds of all born were destroyed. This was 

 the ordinary habit of the Tahitians. The Arioi spared 

 not one. 



Ellis wrote ninety years ago. He helped to disrupt 

 the society. The confessions of scores of its former 

 members were poured into his burning ears. In his 

 unique book of his life in Tahiti, he described their 



